I have “The Big Idea.” It is how to inexpensively scale healthcare digital trust networks to address multiple regional public health concerns.
Simply put, robust healthcare digital trust networks could regionally reduce the mortality of such public health concerns as opioid overdoses, Covid, heat wave deaths, distracted driving, etc.
And the beauty of the idea? It doesn’t require any new infrastructure, any new software, or any new employees; rather, it requires a change of perspective—of seeing one’s organization as a digital entity, part of a digital network.
Aaah, but there’s the rub. Changing perspective is not easy. Healthcare leadership (CEOs, COOs, Chief Medical Officers and the like) tend to be “people people” and have a strong intuitive understanding of trust, but they see trust as a human relationship between people, not a digital relationship within a network. These talented healthcare C-suite folks are mute when it comes to talking about edges and nodes and vertices and symmetry and centrality and degrees of freedom, the vocabulary and grammar of digital trust. (There are exceptions. Two that come to mind are the leadership at The Mayo Clinic and the Cleveland Clinic.)
Rephrased, most healthcare CEOs will see something like Twitter as a marketing component that has something to do with branding and is also an occasional cause of HR policy problems; however a digitally fluent and aware CEO will see their Twitter as a regional node with a high degree of connectivity and centrality which can then be used to attack their regions greatest public health challenges.
And that’s where I could come in. I have lots a weaknesses, and only a few strengths, but one of those strengths is the ability to stand in from of a group of healthcare executives and explain the financial and medical value behind the the creation of healthcare digital trust networks. I could make an overwhelming case, but to actually create systemic change would require significant energy and effort: dozens of meetings, tailored presentations, video creation and the like. It would become a full-time, unpaid job for one year, and more importantly, it is now no longer part of my ikigai.
And there we have it. Selling the idea healthcare digital trust networks to senior healthcare leadership is no longer part of my ikigai, my purpose and my mission.
I have no choice but to take my big idea and let it go.